When a reader of this blog e-mailed me with a question about my recipe for Jewish Chicken Soup – the best medicine I know for whatever ails body or soul – we had an exchange about the source of that recipe: my esteemed colleague and longtime restaurant critic for the Globe & Mail, Joanne Kates.
I have long been grateful to her for that soup, especially her tip about adding the mandatory parsnip. It gives delicate sweetness that elevates that winter mainstay from good to simply sublime.
That young male reader of my blog, after discussing the merits of adding chicken feet to the actual chicken (feet give thickness and a luscious, glutinous texture along with extra flavour), told me he was about to make a delicious dessert from The Joanne Kates Cookbook (my source for the soup and a vintage tome published in 1984) called Ginger Pear Pie. Read more…